Nintendo 64 Happy Birthday N64! (18 years)

[dDave]

IGN did a one hour tribute to the Nintendo 64 today.

Game Scoop! 317: Happy Birthday, N64! - IGN Video

They talk about a lot of history including the reason the hardware was the way that it was. Lots of really cool stuff here from people that lived through it and were old enough to actually remember it.

It's hard to imagine that my favorite console is 18 years old. It feels like I was playing some of these games for the first time just yesterday.

 

[Major]

I don't feel like watching the video, but it is kind of nuts that N64 is 18 years old. It's probably my favorite console as well, although I think the SNES has held up better in terms of graphics and controls. N64 games are just brutal to look at these days.

 

[dDave]

The video isn't for everyone, I did find it to be very interesting though.

Nintendo 64 is undoubtedly my favorite console, I'm sure this is obvious to everyone that reads the gaming section around here.

18 years just feels like such a long time ago. I remember the very first day that I had one. Two games, Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 (Brix tells me we got the console in 97 he thinks) so it's really only been 17 years for us. Still, that's a long time.

As for the controller. There are gamecube controller adapters as well as joystick replacements that are far superior to the original in terms of durability.

One thing that we're going to have problems with will be input lag on newer televisions. The TVs are designed to take input from HD sources via HDMI only, standard composite connections have a noticeable lag on most new TVs and it's just the worst. I need to start looking into a solution for that. It affects N64, NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, XBOX, and even gamecube and Wii.

 

[MrToine]

Already 18 ? Time flies I still recall any moments past on Super Mario 64 when I had to search all stars, for fighting Bowser. This game is for me, the one of best I have played with the serie of final fantasy.

(I love the RPGs and the heroic universes)

 

[sunrise]

I feel so old! I never owned a N64, growing up I was a Sega fan and then jumped to Sony however there is no doubt that what the N64 did was amazing, it was one of the first machines that offered a 64bit processor (I say one of them as the Atari Jag was the first but, well, who cares?). I remember the first time I saw the controller for the N64 and thought "what is that and why does it have three handles? Are three armed people due to be born?" and I never thought it was a comfortable controller to hold.

It of course offered one of the single greatest shooters of all time in Golden eye which has never really been replicated even by Timesplitters.

Just out of interest does anyone here use a Wii and can you play N64 games on the Wii downloaded from the Nintendo store?

 

[dDave]

I feel so old! I never owned a N64, growing up I was a Sega fan and then jumped to Sony however there is no doubt that what the N64 did was amazing, it was one of the first machines that offered a 64bit processor (I say one of them as the Atari Jag was the first but, well, who cares?). I remember the first time I saw the controller for the N64 and thought "what is that and why does it have three handles? Are three armed people due to be born?" and I never thought it was a comfortable controller to hold.

It of course offered one of the single greatest shooters of all time in Golden eye which has never really been replicated even by Timesplitters.

Just out of interest does anyone here use a Wii and can you play N64 games on the Wii downloaded from the Nintendo store?

I'm sure it's because I'm used to it but I still think it feels good in my hands. The controls are really tight, the buttons are placed perfectly, and it's the right size for my hands.

Perfect Dark was definitely still the better game. GoldenEye gets respect for being first but Perfect Dark only added, it did not take away in any respect from Goldeneye.

And the console wasn't 64 bit as we know it today.

Nintendo 64 technical specifications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Definitely a 32 bit in the way it actually performed but technically 64-bit.

8-bit era - NES
16-bit era - SNES, Genesis
32-bit era - N64, PSX, Saturn

The 32-bit era is sometimes synonymously called the 3D or 64-bit era.

One thing we all ought to thank Nintendo for is the thought to put 4 controller ports on the console. They were the first to do it (Sony didn't even do it for the 6th generation PS2) and it revolutionized multiplayer and made this into the first real party console.

 

[sunrise]

I had forgotten about Perfect Dark! I never played it but I heard a lot of good about it. Was that the game were you play a female protagonist as a spy or am I off base here?

You also correct about it being 32 bit, I am unsure of where I got the idea that it was a 64bit console but even so I thought the graphics on it very amazing, Mario 64 was a wonderful game in my opinion.

You are right about the four port thing. I remember having multi-adapaters for my Mega Drive (genesis) and for my PS1 but Nintendo definitely set the trend.

I think the question now is, where did it go wrong? After the N64 Nintendo seemed to take somewhat of a swandive that they never truly recovered from which is for me very sad.

 

[dDave]

Yeah, Perfect Dark was set around Joanna Dark, a spy who works for the Carrington Institute.

Where did it go wrong?

1. Nintendo stopped leading the hardware innovation in terms of power. They also stuck with a proprietary media medium.

2. The loss of Rareware.

 

[Major]

The funny thing is that Rare has been completely irrelevant since breaking up with Nintendo. Have they done anything besides Perfect Dark Zero and the Conker's Bad Fur Day remake?

 

[sunrise]

From what I have heard about Rareware was that Microsoft made an incorrect assumption as to what they were getting. I believe that they thought when they bought out Rare would get the rights to the games that Rare worked on, silly silly Microsoft...

But back to Nintendo and the N64 do you think the continued usage of cartridges when others had moved over to CDR and DVD's etc? I liked cartridges as they were that much faster and much more difficult to kill but do you think this was a wise move?